Pictures of our Sweet Alice

I finally got around to getting a photographer to take pictures of Alice and the family.  We met on a Sunday afternoon at a hiking trail near the lake, and the photographer took us down to the water to take the pictures.  Alice did great, even stopping to pose for him on occasion.  We collected rocks for Alice to throw into the water while the photographer just took candid photos while she played. 

A few weeks later, the photographer came over to the house to show us the pictures. He had even put together a slide show with the pictures. Alice likes to looks at pictures of herself, but for some reason, the video with the music makes her cry ;-( Big tears began to well up in her eyes and she just started bawling...but she wanted to see it again and again. The music is Louis Armstrongs "What a wonderful World".  We ask her why she is crying and all she will say is that shes sad and scared.  We don't know if its the music or what, but we finally had to put it up and not let her watch it again.

These are just a few of my favorite pictures.  We take pictures of Alice all the time ourselves, but others are able to get a different side of our sugar bear.  We also wanted some of her personality to show through in her clothing choices and accessories. 

Robot Maintenance

Alice at Papa and Gamy's house for T-Day+1.

We got a new Roomba robot recently and Alice really likes it.  She loves pushing the buttons and running away as its starts cleaning.  The last few days she has started helping me clean the robot.  She brings her step stool into the kitchen and helps wipe down the Roomba after a cleaning.  She is very interested in robot maintenance and asks me what parts are called (listening closely to answers) and wants to help clean each piece.  Its fun and its generally awesome that Alice will grow up with robots. :-)

Alice understands it to be asleep when it is recharging on its base (a.k.a. its bed).  Also, the robot is often silly.

Alice learns to pedal

It took Alice a while to understand the concept of pedeling,
but she finally got it last Friday.

She has taken a few spills on the trike,
but she always gets back up and tries again.

Thats my Girl!

Room 10 Montage

Dora, Dora, Dora the Explorer

We avoided Dora as long as possible.  We knew an end to the no-Dora era was coming to a close when she came home from a visit to Grandma Didi's house with Dora Pj's, which became her favorite.  Then, she started Spanish classes at school  and they use Dora to teach the kids spanish.  So when we asked Alice one day what she wanted to watch and she enthusiatically yelled "DORI" we knew it was over.

 

Every since she has started watching Dora, she has not wanted to watch a single movie...no Totoro, no Iron Giant, no Anastasia.  Although we dreaded Alice succumbing to the Dora bandwagon, we have noticed some benefits to her watching the show.  She is getting better at counting, following directions and answering questions.  She has also started to create her own Dora pretend games.  We take turns playing "Swiper de Box" (she has a hard time saying Fox) and Alice and Daddy create maps to follow to find the items Swiper takes.

Maybe I'm just trying to rationalize how something we dreaded but could not avoid, could actually turn out to be something beneficial and educational for Alice...and therefore was not as loathsome as we feared ;-)

Potty Training

Alice was potty trained in 1 week. This is a bold statement, and for the most part true on our part. We talked to Alice about going potty at home and on weekends, but she was uninterested. She was much happier playing with us and not having to take time to go potty. We had limited success on the potty training front at home, but we really were not pushing her either. We figured when she was ready, she would tell us. If it hadn’t happened by the time she turned 3, then we would really being to train her in earnest.
School on the other hand, really tried to get the kids to start going potty. They have scheduled potty breaks and tiny little porcelain toilets for them to train on. Alice started to wear pull-ups at school, although she refused to wear them at home….she still wanted to wear her diapers. She had a potty chart at school and stickers were starting to appear on it regularly. One day her teacher said…”Alice’s pull up has been dry all day. If you want to bring her in panties, we could see how she does”. So, the next day Alice went to school in big girl panties and has been wearing them ever since. We still have to remind her to go potty, or ask her if she needs to go, but for the most part, Alice will just tell us when she needs to go. She is also starting to make us leave the bathroom so she can do it “all by myself”.

Since they have the small porcelain potty at school, Alice has always refused to use the small plastic potty training potty.  At first, I had to hold her up on the toilet, then we graduated to her using a step stool to help her get up, but now, she is getting to be a pro.  She can skooch her little butt up on the toilet without any help, and will perch there precariously.  She has only fallen in once ;-) and we joke about it now.  I tell Alice, "be careful, don't fall in the potty" and Alice will smile back and say, "mommy - I fall in the potty......No!!!!" 

We still need help at night, and even with pull ups over her panties at night we have accidents, but she is very proud on the mornings she is still dry.

Diapering was never really all that bad and the funny thing is that I think I will actually miss it. 

Chase Me

We play chase alot.